Lincoln Day, 1809-1900 : commemorative exercises in the public schools of Rochester, N.Y., Monday, February 12th, 1900

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Public Schools of Rochester, N. Y.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12th, 1900,

HELD BY THE REQUEST OF

O'ROURKE CAMP, No. 60, SONS OF VETERANS.

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LINCOLN'S BIRTHPLACE.

Suggestive Programme*

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1. SONG-"America."

2. SKETCH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LIFE.

3. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE.

4. ARCHBISHOP IRELAND AT CHICAGO PEACE JUBILEE.

5. APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE TO AVERT WAR,

6. OLD GLORY.

7. SONG-"Star Spangled Banner."

8. ONE OF LINCOLN'S SHORTEST AND BEST SPEECHES.

9. OUR FLAG.

10. LINCOLN AT THE HELM OF THE SHIP OF STATE.

11. LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

12. SONG— "Battle Hymn of the Pepublic."

13. LINCOLN. 'For Three Boys.'

14. ABRAHAM LINCOLN -__---.

15. OUR FLAG SHALL WAVE.

16. LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.

17. BISHOP SIMPSON'S FUNERAL ORATION.

18. SONG— " Flag of the Free."

Lincoln.

R. Gilder.

Extract.

Sketch of Abraham Lincoln's Cife.

To be Read.

E have one hero, pre-eminent in the service he rendered. His story
is the story of the American people of his time. I see a little lad,
shy and ill cared for, in a cheerless Kentucky cabin. At the age of seven
he was given a Dilworth spelling-book — which was one-third of the family
librarv — and sent to the district school. But he was frequently kept at
home, even then. When his mother died he was ten years old, and had
learned to read and write. Now the family have moved to Indiana, and a
foster-mother has come to give something- like comfort to the rude dwelling

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and sympathy and encouragement to the boy.

My picture is of an awkward, boy, going to school in a log school-
house when he could, but oftener employed by some neighboring farmer,
or in the store at the cross-roads, and at night taking his supper of corn-
bread in his hand in the chimney-corner or under the trees, while he
devoured at the same time "Aesop's Fables," " Robinson Crusoe," " Pil-
grims' Progress," a history of the United States, or an old " Life of
Washington." He was beginning, too, to make extracts from the books
he read, and to frame little essays of his own. Paper was scarce and dear,
so the first draught was made with charcoal on a wooden shovel, which
could afterwards be scraped clean, or upon a shingle.

I see the same lad, grown taller and stronger, and eager to do what-
ever useful or honest thing he might. At nineteen, he went down the
Mississippi to New Orleans as a flat-boat hand. Returning, he was again
clerk in the country store ; and a year or two later went with his father's
family to Illinois, driving the ox-team himself, and peddling along the
route a stock of small wares with which he had provided himself before
leaving the home in Indiana. I see him splitting the rails for the new
cabin, and helping to build it ; and then — being now past twenty-one —
leaving home to make his own way in the world. He had but his own
hands and head to rely on.

1

I see a more significant scene, — a slave auction which he witnessed
while on a trip to New Orleans. The horror, and sadness, and deep
resolve it stirred in him, he onlv partially told ; but his later life was
burdened with them. Slow and miserable vears followed, when nothing
that he attempted prospered, and he found himself in debt, with a dismal
outlook before him. But he had begun to study law bv himself; his
neighbors trusted him, and he was with all his acquaintances a favorite.

The next picture is the country lawyer — obscure, diligent and up-
right— who won manv cases and took small fees, and who never, know-
ingly, stood for a guilty person. He has been known to abandon a case,
more than once, even at the bar itself, because he had become persuaded that
his client was guilty. He had won, too, some celebritv as a captain in
the Black Hawk war; and we find him presently in the legislature of his
State, where his most memorable act was the stand he took against a pro-
slavery resolution.

Next, a successful lawyer in Springfield, where his uprightness was
brought into even stronger relief. The kind heart, which from childhood
was quick to redress a wrong or render a service, had its way in manv
things here, too. Winning rapidly the confidence and respect of his
associates, he was sent, in 1846, to the National Congress, where he did
the duty of a young, little known, and single-minded statesman, careless
of gain or fame, and finding only occasional opportunity to champion the
cause he had most at heart.

The slavery question was one which found him possessed of deep
and firm convictions. He was plainly identified with the anti-slavery
movement, and he finally became its leader.

Cincoln at tbc f?elm of the $btp of State.

I see him, then, still guiding the ship of state safelv through perilous
places, through narrow straits, and past shoals and quicksands without
number, maintaining the edict he had issued and confirming it ; seeing the
rebellion quelled, the freedman assured of his liberty, the army on the eve
of disbanding. And then, while such jubilee still sounded in the land, I
see the martyred president. And the very bells which rang for his valiant
deed, toll for his untimely death,

2

Lincoln.

For Three Boys.

First Boy. — As Washington stands to the Revolution and the estab-
lishment of the government, so Lincoln stands as the hero of the
mightier struggle by which our Union was saved. No great man ever
came from beginnings which seemed to promise so little. Lincoln's
tamilv, tor more than one generation, had been sinking instead of rising in
the social scale. His father was one of those men who were found on the
frontier in the early days of the Western movement, always changing
from one place to another, and dropping a little lower at each remove.
Abraham Lincoln was born into a family who were not only poor, but
shiftless, and his earlv davs were days of ignorance, poverty and hard work.
Out of such surroundings he slowly and painfully lifted himself. He gave
himself an education, took part in the Indian war, worked in the fields,
kept store, read and studied, and at last became a lawyer. Then he settled
into the politics of the newly-settled State. He grew to be a leader in
his countv, and went to the legislature. The road was rough, the struggle
hard and bitter, but the movement was always upward.

Second Boy. — At last he was elected to Congress, and served one term
in Washington as a Whig, with credit but without distinction. Then he
went back to his law and his politics in Illinois. He had at last made his
position. All that was now needed was opportunity, and that came to him
in the great anti-slaverv struggle.

.Third Boy. — No public man, no great leader, ever faced a more ter-
rible situation than did Lincoln when he assumed the presidency. The
Union was breaking, the Southern States were seceding, treason was rampant
in Washington, and the government was bankrupt. The country knew that
Lincoln was a man of great capacitv in debate, devoted to the cause of
anti-slaverv and to the maintenance of the Union. But what his ability
was to deal with the awful conditions by which he was surrounded, no one
knew. To follow him through the four years of civil war which ensued
is of course impossible here. Suffice it to sav that no more difficult task
has ever been faced by any man in modern times, and no one ever met a
fierce trial more successfully.

Appeal to tbe People to Avert mar.

From Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

By the frame of the government under which we live, the same peo-
ple have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief;
and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their
own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue
and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or follv,
can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four vears.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost, by taking time. If there be an
object to hurry anv of vou in hot haste to a step which you would never
take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time, but no good
object can be frustrated bv it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still
have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws
of your own framing under it ; while the new administration will have no
immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that
you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no
single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christ-
ianity, and a firm reliance upon Him who has never yet forsaken this
favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present
difficulties.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government ; while I shall
have the most solemn one to " preserve, protect, and defend " it.

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched,
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

One of Cincoln's Shortest and Be$t Speeches.

Newspaper Extract.

On Thursday of a certain week, two ladies from Tennessee came
before the President, asking the release of their husbands, held as prisoners
of war at Johnson's Island. They were put off" till Friday, when they

came again ; and were again put off to Saturday. At each of the inter-
views, one of the ladies urged that her husband was a religious man. On
Saturday the President ordered the release of the prisoners, and then said to
the lady : " You say your husband is a religious man ; tell him when you
meet him, that I sav I am not much of a judge of religion, but that, in my
opinion, the religion that sets men to rebel, and fight against their govern-
ment because, as they think, that government does not sufficiently help some
men to eat their bread by the sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of
religion upon which people can get to heaven ! "

Lincoln's Second Inaugural JSddress.

Extract.

North and South read the same Bible and pray to the same God ; and
each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the
sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
The prayer of both could not be answered, — that of neither has been
answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe unto the
world because of offences ! for it must needs be that offences come ; but
woe to that man bv whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that
American slavery is one of those offences, which in the providence of God
must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed
time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South
this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall
we discern therein anv departure from those divine attributes which the
believers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope,
fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedly pass
away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the
bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
be said, " The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the

right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work

we are in ; to bind up the Nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall

have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which

may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and

with all nations.

5

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

November 19, 1863.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propo-
sition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great
civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated can lona; endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense,
we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it
far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note,
or long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so noblv advanced. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion •, that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and that government of the
people, bv the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln's call for three hundred thousand volunteers brought out the
following poem. It was an inspiration in every union camp, at every
recruiting station and in every citv and hamlet in the north.

Cbree hundred Cbousand more.

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore ;

We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear :

We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before ;

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more !

Is you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky,
Long moving lines oi rising dust your vision may descry ;
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride,

And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour ;
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.

IT you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests shine,
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line ;
And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds,
And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs ;
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door ;
We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more !

You have called us, and we're coming, by Richmond's bloody tide,

To lay us down, for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside,

Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the murderous blade,

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before :

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.

Hrcbbisbop Ireland at tbe Chicago Peace Jubilee,
October 19, 1898.

A just and necessary war is holy. The men who at country's call
engage in such a war are the country's heroes to whom must be given
unstinted praise. The sword in their hands is the emblem of self-sacrifice
and of valor ; the flag which leads them betokens their country, and bids
them pour out an oblation to purest patriotism the life-blood of their
hearts ; the shroud which spreads over the dead of the battlefield is the
mantle of fame and of glory.

To do great things, to meet fitly great responsibilities, a nation, like a
person, must be conscious of its dignity and its power. The conscious-
ness of what she is and what she may be has come to America. She
knows that she is a great nation. The elements of greatness were not
imparted by the war ; but they were revealed to her by the war, and their
vitality and their significance were increased through the war.

America, the eyes of the world are upon thee. Thou livest for the
world. The new era is shedding its light upon thee and through thee upon
the whole world.

Americans, your country demands intelligence and virtue. Build
schools and colleges. Drive from the land the darkness of ignorance.
Practice and encourage virtue. Let America be the home of honesty and
of justice, of social purity and temperance, of honor and of faithfulness, of
self-restraint and of obedience to law. Even more than intelligence is
virtue needed, that America live and be great.

7

Old Glory.

Behold it ! Listen to it ! Every star has a tongue ; every stripe is
articulate. " There is no language or speech where their voices are not
heard." There is magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every ques-
tion of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and perplexity. It has a
word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency. Behold it !
Listen to it ! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of
victories, and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It
speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and the dead. But before
all and above all other associations and memories, whether of glorious men,
or glorious deeds, or glorious places, its voice is ever of union and liberty,
of the constitution and the laws. — Robert C. Winthrof.

Our Tlag.

Mary. —

Tell me, who can, about our flag,

With its red, and white, and blue ?
How came it to have so many stars,

And of pretty stripes so few ?

John. —

The thirteen stripes are for thirteen states

That first into the Union came ;
For each new state we have added a star,

But have kept the stripes the same.

Bessie. —

The number has now reached forth-five !

So here's an example for you :
Take the "old thirteen " from forty-five,

And how many stars are new ?

Charles. —

Thirteen from forty-five ? Let's see ;

Well, three from five leaves two,
And one from four leaves three ; there'll be,

Of new states, — thirty-two.

All in Concert. —

And these all reach from East to West,

To both the ocean shores ;
And over all the proud flag waves,

And the. Bird of Freedom soars !

Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men

As might some prophet of the elder day,

Brooding above the tempest and the fray
With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.

A power was his bevond the touch of art

Or armed strength ; his pure and mighty heart.

— Richard W. Gilder.

Bisbop Simpson's Tuncral Oration.

Chieftain ! Farewell ! The nation mourns thee. Mothers shall teach
thv name to their lisping children. The youth of our land shall emulate
thy virtues. Statesmen shall study thy record and learn lessons of wisdom.
Mute though thy lips be, yet they still speak. Hushed is thy voice, but
its echoes of liberty are ringing through the world, and the sons of
bondage listen with joy. Prisoned thou art in death, and yet thou are
marching abroad, and chains and manacles are bursting at thv touch.
Thou didst fall not for thyself. The assassin had no hate for thee. Our
hearts were aimed at, our national life was sought. We crown thee as our
martyr — and humanity enthrones thee as her triumphant son. Hero,
Martyr, Friend, Farewell !

7/ ZOO 9. 03<f. OU

Our Flag Sball lUave.

" Its folds shall wave above the brave

O'er all this land ;
While freemen boast, from coast to coast,

The name thev value most,
The emblem our forefathers planned."

EXERCISES HELD BY REQUEST OF O'ROURKE CAMP No. 60, S. 0. V.

COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS:

Commissioner GEORGE M. FORBES. Principal RICHARD A. SEARING,

Commissioner HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY. Principal JOHN W. OSBURN,

Commissioner PHELETUS CHAMBERLAIN. Principal MARK W. WAY.